Shadow of the Wolf
by chocolatequeen
Summary: The Doctor knew Rose was coming back, but he didn't expect to find her here. When Rose reaches the Shadow Proclamation before the Doctor and Donna, it sets in motion a new chain of events that leads to a different ending for all involved.


The TARDIS shuddered through the turbulent time streams as they flew to the Shadow Proclamation, but under the grinding sound of her straining engines, the Doctor heard a note of excitement.

Rose was coming back.

The Earth had been stolen, taken without a trace. According to Donna, there were stars going out and darkness was coming.

But Rose was coming back. No matter what else was happening, that was definitely good.

"So go on then, what is the Shadow Proclamation anyway?"

Donna's question pulled the Doctor out of his reverie. "Posh name for police," he explained. "Outer space police."

He felt the TARDIS hit the shield barrier protecting the complex, and he shoved another lever into place. With the key code activated, the ship passed through without further difficulty and landed in the main conference room. Not the traditional landing area, but they didn't have time for proper protocol.

The monitor flicked on, and the Doctor glanced at it while he put his coat on. "Judoon." He grimaced—the rhino-faced aliens always sucked the fun out of everything. "Don't try to talk to them," he warned Donna as they walked down the ramp. "You won't be able to understand them anyway—the TARDIS won't translate their language."

She nodded, and he pushed the door open. "Slowly," he whispered. Then he stepped outside, his hands held slightly in front of himself to show he was unarmed.

The Judoon were unimpressed. Five masked soldiers dropped into battle positions with their guns at the ready, and the sixth barked out a demand. "Sco bo tro no flo jo ko fo to to." _What is the nature of your visit?_

"No bo ho sho ko ro to so." _I need to speak to the Shadow Architect about a threat to the universe._ He paused for effect, then rattled off the code word confirming his identity. "Bokodozogobofopojo."

The masked Judoon relaxed and holstered their weapons. The Doctor raised an eyebrow and looked at their captain.

"Moho." _Now._

The captain held up his fist, and his team spun and returned to their posts around the room. Then he turned and addressed a woman the Doctor and Donna hadn't been able to see before.

"The Time Lord is here to see you, Shadow Architect."

The Shadow Architect was at the far end of the room, and she paced down one side of the conference table while the Doctor and Donna moved around to the other side. A tall, albino woman, she was dressed completely in black—even her white hair was contained in a black snood. Her black dress fluttered behind her as she walked. The effect was rather Snape-like, and when she spoke, the arrogance in her voice completed the resemblance.

Her lips curled over her teeth and she shook her head. "Time Lords are the stuff of legend. They belong in the myths and whispers of the Higher Species," she declared as she slowly paced the room. "You cannot possibly exist."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. Obviously, he did exist, and this was a waste of time. "Yeah." He rocked back on his heels. "More to the point, I've got a missing planet."

She pursed her lips and her nostrils thinned. "Yes, Time Lord. We are already aware of the missing planets. The stars are going out. If you do not have anything new to add to the conversation…"

The Doctor blinked. "What do you mean, the stars are going out?" _How does everyone know about that but me?_

Her eyebrows lifted and she smiled slightly, sneering annoyance becoming sneering amusement. "It seems you are not as informed as you believed. Another visitor reached us today, walking through worlds to warn us of the coming darkness."

_Walking through worlds._

Time tightened around the Doctor, spinning new timelines as it moved. He swallowed. "Who was she? What did she look like?"

The smirk deepened. "Her legend has penetrated even the highest levels of the Shadow Proclamation. Her words are written in our Holy Texts. How could we not listen when she brought us a warning?"

The Doctor ground his teeth together and asked one more time. "What was her name?"

He heard the soft snick of a door opening and closing, and he followed the Shadow Architect's gaze to the woman standing behind the staircase. "I never told them my name, only my title," she said as she stepped out of the shadows. "I am the Bad Wolf."

The Doctor stared at Rose, at the confident tilt of her chin and the glint of gold in his eyes. _Rose is here!_ His brain screamed at his body to run to her, but his body was frozen in place.

Rose kept walking until she was only a foot away from him. "Hello," she said, her voice soft and tender.

The Doctor reached out to touch her, noticing somewhat distantly that his hand was shaking. And when he touched her, she didn't disappear like she had so many times in his dreams.

He took a deep breath and swayed slightly, then opened his arms to her. Rose laughed and leapt into his embrace, and he held her tight and swung her around.

Finally, he set her back down and rested his hands on her waist. He opened and closed his mouth several times, trying to speak, but his throat was too tight.

Rose reached up and traced her finger over his left eyebrow, then rested her hand against his cheek. He sighed and pressed a kiss to her palm, smiling when he felt her breath hitch.

"You came back," he whispered. Stating the obvious, yes, but it was still hard to believe.

She raised her eyebrow. "I told you, didn't I? I'm never gonna leave you."

The declaration made the Doctor weak in his knees, just like it had the first time. Three words trembled on the edge of his lips, but before he could say them, an irritated voice interrupted them.

"Excuse me."

The Doctor looked over his shoulder at the Shadow Architect. Her red eyes burned with aggravation.

"If you could be persuaded to postpone your reunion to a more appropriate time and place, we have a situation at hand."

"Oi!" Donna leaned over the table and glared at her. "They haven't seen each other in years. Maybe try giving them a few minutes?"

The Doctor agreed wholeheartedly, but to his chagrin, Rose pulled out of his embrace and took his hand instead. "It's all right, Donna," she said. "She has a point."

The Shadow Architect nodded curtly. "Thank you. Do remember, twenty-four worlds have been taken from the sky."

The Doctor frowned. "Twenty-four?" He remembered, belatedly, that the Architect had said _missing planets_ before.

She raised her eyebrows and gestured at the monitor on the table. "The picture is far bigger than you imagine. The whole universe is in outrage, Doctor."

"Which ones? Show me."

Donna smiled as she watched the Doctor and Rose jog around the table to join the bossy Shadow Architect. The Doctor dropped Rose's hand just long enough to put his glasses on, then he reached for her again. After years apart, Donna didn't blame him if he was afraid Rose would disappear.

The woman tapped a control, and the Doctor and Rose leaned forward to watch the monitor. "Locations range far and wide, but all disappeared at the exact same moment, leaving no trace."

The Doctor squinted at the monitor. "Callufrax Minor. Jahoo. Shallacatop. Woman Wept. Clom." The Doctor paused in his recitation of planet names. "Clom's gone?"

Rose wrinkled her nose. "Who'd want Clom?"

The Doctor looked up at Rose with a giddy smile on his face that didn't fit the serious conversation. "Exactly what I was going to ask."

_Oh, God, there's two of them,_ Donna realised.

The woman cleared her throat, and they both looked back at her. "They are all different sizes," she continued. "Some populated, some not. But all unconnected."

"Not exactly unconnected," Rose countered. "They did all go missing at the same time."

Donna started to laugh at that comment, but something about the phrasing triggered a memory. _Missing…_ "What about Pyrovillia?"

The Shadow Architect lifted her head slowly and glared at her. "Who is the female?" she asked, tight lines around her mouth.

Donna tossed her hair back over her shoulder. This was too familiar, too much like her mum. "Donna. I'm a human being," she spat out. The Shadow Architect drew back slightly, but Donna kept going. "Maybe not the stuff of legend or out of your Holy Texts, but every bit as important as these two, thank you."

Rose cheered silently as the Shadow Architect blinked several times. The haughty woman had been getting increasingly on her nerves since she'd arrived, and it was good to see her taken down a few pegs.

"What's Pyrovillia?" she asked, wanting to support Donna.

Donna glared at the Shadow Architect for a moment longer before looking at Rose. "We went to Pompeii, the Doctor and me. And the man, this… fortune teller, he said the planet Pyrovillia had gone missing."

"Pyrovillia is cold case," the Judoon captain grunted before anyone could comment. "Not relevant."

Donna turned to look at him. "How do you mean, cold case?"

The Shadow Architect shook her head and looked away from Donna. "The planet Pyrovillia cannot be part of this. It disappeared over two thousand years ago."

Rose frowned; something about that didn't seem right, but she couldn't put her finger on the problem.

"Yes, yes, hang on," Donna said, not as easily dismissed as the Shadow Architect had hoped. "But there's the Adipose breeding planet, too. Miss Foster said that was lost, but that must've been a long time ago."

The Doctor jumped, and Rose had to take half a step back so he didn't hit her in the face when he threw up his arm in exultation.

"That's it! Donna, brilliant." He spun on his heel and addressed the Shadow Architect. "Planets are being taken out of time as well as space," he explained as he leaned over the computer terminal. "Let's put this into 3-D."

He turned a knob, and Rose blinked when the first hologram popped up. One by one the other planets joined it.

"Now, if we add Pyrovillia and Adipose Three." Two more planets appeared, and the Doctor shook his head. "Something missing," he mumbled. "Where else, where else, where else? Where else lost, lost, lost, lost. Oh!" He bounced on his toes. "The Lost Moon of Poosh."

He pressed one final button, then walked to the centre of the room, his eyes on the display all the while. Rose held her breath; the Doctor was clearly expecting something…

Her mouth fell open when the planets that had been scattered haphazardly over the table shifted into a balanced arrangement.

"What did you do?" the Shadow Architect demanded.

"He didn't do anything," Rose replied. "This is why these planets were taken—because they fit together, like cogs in a machine."

The Doctor beamed at her. "Exactly. The planets rearranged themselves into the optimum pattern." He looked back at the display, shaking his head in admiration. "Oh, that is gorgeous."

"Hang on," Donna interrupted. "You said the planets are parts of a machine, Rose. But what's the machine for?"

The Doctor rubbed his chin. "That is the question," he admitted.

The Shadow Architect shook her head quickly, her arrogant confidence finally faltering. "Who could design such a thing?"

"Someone tried to move the Earth once before," he murmured. "Long time ago." He narrowed his eyes. "Can't be."

Rose shivered, despite her leather jacket. She rubbed her hands briskly over her arms, trying to ward off the feeling.

"Rose?"

She blinked and looked up at the Doctor. "I'm fine." He squinted at her, and she smiled back. "Really, Doctor. Look, you see if you can figure out what's going on. I'm gonna talk to Donna for a bit."

Rose sat down on the steps beside Donna, trying to forget the sudden chill she'd felt a moment ago. _Like someone walking over my grave. _

"Do you think anyone on Earth is still alive?" Donna asked, breaking into Rose's thoughts.

Rose took in the worry lines around Donna's eyes and mouth. "Yeah, they're all right."

Donna shook her head. "But how can they be?" she argued. "The sun is gone. The atmosphere…"

Rose felt her forehead wrinkle as she considered the question. "I don't know how," she admitted. "But I landed on Earth first, before I came here. It must have been right after the Earth moved. I swear, Donna, everyone is fine."

Donna stared hard at her, then her shoulders relaxed and she let out a long, slow breath. "Thanks."

A servant appeared with a tray, interrupting Rose's reply. "You need sustenance," she said, nodding at the bowls on her tray. "Take the water; it purifies."

"Thank you," Rose and Donna replied quietly. They each took a bowl, and the servant bowed, then backed away.

"So, how'd you manage to come back?" Donna asked. "The Doctor said it was impossible."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Yeah, he likes using that word. I do not think it means what he thinks it means."

Donna laughed out loud at the quote. "I've noticed that. But come on, trapped in a parallel universe seems pretty final."

Rose set her bowl down and leaned forward. "I will always come back to him," she said, letting the defiance and determination that had gotten her through the last three years seep into her voice. "It doesn't matter if he sends me back to Earth or if I'm in a parallel universe. I will _always_ come back."

The TARDIS sang, and when Rose turned towards her, she thought she saw golden light glowing through the windows. "I am the Bad Wolf," she murmured.

She shook her head when she heard plimsolls slapping against the floor and smiled at the Doctor as he joined them.

The Doctor smiled back, his train of thought momentarily derailed by the sight of her. Rose was here!

But then he remembered she'd only managed to come back because the stars were going out, which had something to do with the planets being stolen. And he needed to figure out why they'd been stolen so he could bring them back. Then he could have a proper reunion with Rose.

With that stern reminder, he looked at Donna. "Donna, come on, think. Earth. There must've been some sort of warning," he said. "Was anything happening back in your day, like electrical storms, freak weather, patterns in the sky?"

She blinked. "Er, no. I don't think so, no."

The Doctor narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. "Are you sure?" he pressed. Donna was the only one of them who had spent a long period of time on Earth shortly before things started to go wrong.

"No, there's nothing."

He pressed his lips together and turned to walk back to the computer terminal. There had to be something…

"Although, there were the bees disappearing," Donna added, before he'd taken a step.

"The bees disappearing," he echoed, without turning around. She'd mentioned the bees more than once, but colony collapse couldn't have anything to do with this.

_Hang on, what if those weren't bees?_ He turned around, meeting Rose's hopeful gaze. "The bees disappearing," he repeated, letting the words sink in. And then he had it. "The bees disappearing!"

He bent over the terminal and started typing frantically. _Please don't let the trail be cold. _

"How is that significant?" the Shadow Architect asked.

Donna and Rose were both peering over his shoulder in seconds. "On Earth we had these insects," Donna explained breathlessly. "Some people said it was pollution or mobile phone signals."

"Or, they were going back home." The Doctor typed the last character of the command, then waited impatiently for the computer to turn up some trace of the bees, and hopefully the missing planets.

"What do you mean, back home?" Rose asked.

He didn't look away from the terminal. "Planet Melissa Majoria."

"Are you saying bees are aliens?" Donna asked.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Don't be so daft. Not all of them. But if the migrant bees felt something coming, some sort of danger, and escaped?" He pointed at the Shadow Architect. "Tandocca," he pronounced triumphantly.

"The Tandocca Scale," she breathed.

Before Donna and Rose could ask what they were talking about, he launched into an explanation, speaking so fast the words practically tripped over each other. "Tandocca Scale is the series of wavelengths used as carrier signals by migrant bees. Infinitely small. No wonder we didn't see it. It's like looking for a speck of cinnamon in the Sahara."

The terminal beeped, "But look! There it is." He pointed at the trail of tiny dots moving across the monitor. "The Tandocca trail. The transmat that moved the planets was using the same wavelength. We can follow the path."

"Well, come on then," Rose called out. The Doctor spun around and grinned when he saw her standing by the TARDIS, holding the door ajar.

Donna and Rose were already inside when he reached the door. "We're a bit late," he cautioned as he ran up the ramp.

He leapt in front of the monitor and turned a dial on the console, holding his breath. A moment later, they heard a fuzzy ping as the TARDIS found the trail. "The signal's scattered, but it's a start."

He raced back down the ramp to update the Shadow Architect. Behind him, he could hear Rose setting the coordinates so they could leave immediately.

"I've got a blip," he said. "It's just a blip, but it's definitely a blip."

The Shadow Architect drew herself up. "Then according to the Strictures of the Shadow Proclamation," she said, her words vibrating with tense energy, "I will have to seize your transport and your technology."

The Doctor blinked and rocked back on his heels. "Oh, really? What for?"

Her eyes burned with vengeance. "The planets were stolen with hostile intent. We are declaring war, Doctor, right across the universe, and you will lead us into battle."

"Right." The Doctor swallowed back his anger. "Yes. Course I will." He gestured over his shoulder as he stepped backwards. "I'll just go and get you the key."

Rose threw the dematerialisation lever as soon as the door shut. "I'm not sorry to be leaving them behind." She crossed her arms over her chest and scowled at the Doctor. "As if we'd hand our TARDIS over to that lot!"

The Doctor laughed exuberantly. "Rose Tyler."

She unbent, just a little. "Yes, Doctor?"

Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor noticed Donna leave the room. He made a mental note to thank her later, then focused his attention on the woman standing in front of him.

"You came back," he told her as he crossed the remaining feet between them.

Her tongue peeked out between her teeth. "You said that already," she pointed out.

"I think it's noteworthy enough to be mentioned twice," he said drily. "But… on the subject of things I haven't said before…"

Rose's eyes widened and he saw the breath hitch in her chest. He smiled and brushed his knuckles over her cheek as he leaned down.

"I love you," he whispered against her lips.


End file.
